Exclusive-'They'll kill us' - Afghan pilots held at Uzbek camp fear deadly homecoming

An August 29, 2021 satellite image shows the Uzbek camp, located just across the border from Afghanistan, which holds U.S.-trained Afghan pilots and other personnel. The personnel at the camp have been waiting for a U.S. evacuation for nearly three weeks and fear being handed over to the Taliban. Satellite image copyright 2021 Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) - The U.S.-trained Afghan pilots and others held at a camp in Uzbekistan already feared being sent back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. So it was little comfort when an Uzbek guard unsympathetically quipped the other day: "You can't stay here forever."

The offhand warning added to an already grinding sense of unease at the camp just across Afghanistan's northern border, recounted one of the Afghan pilots who fled there with aircraft when ground forces fell to the Taliban in August as the United states and its allies withdrew their forces.